Rosa Parks and The Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott all started when Rosa Parks sat down for something she believed in. On December 5, 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person. Jim Crow laws enabled the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result of this segregation, African Americans were forced to ride in the back of the bus, give up their seats for white people, and were not hired as drivers even though black people were 75% of the bus riding population. Black passengers were also targeted and attacked by drivers, short changed, and left stranded after paying their bus fares.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama in Rosa Parks' Seat

The goal of this event was to lead to the equal treatment of African Americans and the end to racial discrimination. Luckily, we have made great strides in this area even having an African American president.

E.D. Nixon was a key leader of the bus boycott. He was the president of the local NAACP and intended on using Park's arrest as a test case to allow local African Americans to test the segregation of the city buses. This helped accelerate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's civil rights movement and all three of these individuals were huge activists for the movement.

Jesse Owens jumping hurdles while at Ohio State University

They had to hurdle many obstacles including both de jure segregation at the time and de facto segregation. However, they eventually overcame these obstacles and reached their goal of ending segregation. However, racism still exists today.

Although not as extreme as before, racism is still prevalent today. Racial tension is higher now than in recent years and issues such as police brutality and white privilege still exist. The KKK is still around so there is definitely room to improve. These issues are similar to the civil rights movement because African Americans are still oppressed by unfair stereotypes and unequal opportunity.